The present invention broadly relates to chemical reaction technology and, more specifically, pertains to a new and improved apparatus for tempering or regulating the temperature of a laboratory reaction vessel arrangement.
Generally speaking, the apparatus of the present invention is of the type intended for a laboratory reaction vessel arrangement. The laboratory reaction vessel arrangement has a thermal chamber through which a fluid tempering medium or fluid heat transfer medium for transporting thermal energy is conducted.
Laboratory reaction vessels or laboratory chemical reactors are vessels made of glass, plastic or metal in which chemical reactions are carried out under predetermined conditions. An important one of these conditions is the temperature. In process or reaction technology, temperature control or regulation plays a very great role. Multiple requirements are placed on static temperature conditions, dynamic temperature conditions, or both. For instance, it may be required to stabilize a temperature within very narrow tolerances or it may be required to precisely temporally vary temperature (heating or cooling).
The temporally dependent control of temperature can be generally classified according to three groups of requirements:
1. slow to very slow control of temperature in relation to time;
2. control of temperature at rates ranging between pronouncedly slow and pronouncedly rapid in relation to time; and
3. rapid to very rapid control of temperature in relation to time.
The second group of temperature control listed above is the least demanding and probably the most frequently occurring procedure, while the temperature control of the other two groups 1 and 3 must be designated as problems of process technology ranked as more demanding to nearly insoluble. The problem of gradual cooling is, for example, known from the fabrication of concave mirrors in which the formation of temperature gradients within the material being processed must be avoided or minimized as far as possible. The opposite case arises when energy is to be supplied to or withdrawn from a material to be processed, for instance a fluid medium, as rapidly as possible.
The present invention is concerned with the problem of rapid temperature changes or variations mentioned in the third group of problem areas.